Sleeper, Awake
by CityDurl
Summary: Not all dreams stem from memories. Another one-shot after Birthright Pt. 1. Data/Tasha. For BatMonkey81.


At first, the dreams all began the same way. Data was walking through the corridors of the Enterprise, and he would hear an incongruous sound. For the first few days, it was the sound of the sledgehammer on the anvil. He would see his father in the guise of the blacksmith. But, like most of his programs, his dreaming subroutine soon began to evolve and change. He would hear other sounds, like running water, or rushing wind, and find himself on the surface of a planet, with elements from memory and imagination making the landscape fanciful and unreal. Or sometimes, he would find himself in space, flying through nothingness like a bird. Oftentimes, Spot was there with him. Then, his friends on the bridge crew began to populate his dreams, sometimes appearing in places where he would expect to see them, sometimes not. They would say and do inexplicable things. When his period of unconsciousness would end, and he would tell his friends that he had dreamed of them, they reacted with delight.

Keiko had been the first new person to enter Data's dreams. He reasoned that it was because he missed her, since she had transferred with Miles and Molly to Deep Space 9 several weeks before. In his dream, Keiko was younger, not yet a wife and mother, and they had talked together in the arboretum while she worked, as they had done so often before he had introduced her to Miles. It was a pleasant, innocuous dream.

Next, he saw Lore, but nothing about the dream had unsettled him. Lore was playing a game that the children onboard often played: hide and seek. Lore was seeking, but Data was not hiding – he was going about his regular duties on the Enterprise, and Lore would suddenly appear at the end of a hallway, or around a curved corner, wagging his finger and saying, "I'm going to find you, Brother." When Data regained consciousness, he was puzzled by the dream, but unperturbed.

Data decided to requisition a bed. It seemed a logical decision – he was dreaming like humans did, and though he was not technically sleeping, he thought a bed an appropriate place to do so. He chose a double size – he was ever the optimist – in a neutral grey. He placed it in his main living area, close to his computer workstation. It immediately became Spot's napping location of choice. One by one, all of his friends found excuses to visit his quarters and survey the new addition. Geordi pronounced it "the homiest touch yet." Data was satisfied with his friends' approbation. Needing a bed was very human, though he did not go so far as to acquire clothes for sleeping. It seemed an unnecessary affectation, as he often went immediately to his duties upon arising, and he always slept alone.

Unlike humans, Data did not go through stages of sleep. He entered immediately into what would be REM sleep, without pause from a waking state. He found it somewhat disorienting when it was over, to go from perceiving reality to experiencing a dream without a lapse in time, but Counselor Troi assured him that most humanoids found aspects of dreaming to be disorienting.

Not long after he acquired his bed, towards the end of an uneventful day, he devoted two hours to dreaming. He set his internal chronometer to awaken him at 2200 hours, which would allow him ample time to complete his initial evaluation of the new science department heads for Cdr. Riker, and to report for bridge duty at 2300 hours. He fluffed his pillow, said goodnight to Spot, got into bed, and pulled the covers up to his chin. He closed his eyes.

He had the distinct impression that he was not alone. He opened his eyes, and was startled to find that someone had entered his quarters while he was unconscious. And had gotten into bed with him. He sat up, and the blanket scrunched to expose a bare back and bent arm lying over the head of the intruder. In another instant, he recognized the defined muscles and bone structure of the person beside him. He would have known her from any angle; it was not necessary to see her face. He reached out to touch her – it seemed impossible that she could be real. But her body had warmth and substance, her skin was smooth, and she had the well-developed trapezius muscles of a person who worked out every day. Her hair was longer than he remembered it, the blond layers extending to the nape of her neck, still exposing her ears, but the effect was softer, less severe. He ran his fingers over the tendons of her neck, and she stirred and turned over. She opened her eyes.

"Did I fall asleep on you? I'm sorry. You must've worn me out."

The twinkle in her blue eyes was familiar, but there were changes to her appearance. Fine wrinkles were etched around her eyes, radiating from the corners and tracing lines made by her smile. There were circles below her eyes that had not been there before. Her dimples were deeper, as were the nasolabial folds. Faint horizontal lines had settled into her forehead and throat. Her sharp jawline had blurred. She was still strikingly beautiful, but she was older, as if she had aged along with their friends on the bridge crew.

"What's the matter? You look as though you've just seen a ghost."

"Tasha." He said it quietly, as if she might disappear if he spoke too loudly.

"Yes, Data?" She grinned and patted his face. "If you were expecting someone else, maybe we should have a little talk."

He took her hand from his cheek and examined it. He recognized everything: her fingerprints, her short nails, but again, there was a change. A piece of jewelry, which she almost never wore. A ring.

"Left hand, fourth finger," he said aloud. "A symbol of matrimony."

"Data, seriously, is something wrong? Did Geordi tamper with your memory cells the last time he repaired you?" Tasha asked.

"I do not know," Data replied.

"He's getting too blasé. He should be more careful." Tasha sat up and stretched, her bones cracking. She was completely unclothed, and time and gravity had left subtle marks on her figure. Data still found her aesthetically pleasing. "Maybe we should go to engineering and check you out."

Data started to get out of bed with his usual automatic compliance, but stopped as a realization struck him. "I am not dressed."

Tasha laughed. "No, why would you be?"

He looked at her in confusion. "I do not remember getting undressed."

"There _is _a problem with your memory cells. C'mon, let's go."

"No." He held her arm as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Let us stay here. I would like to talk to you."

She looked at him with uncertain amusement. "Okay. What do you want to talk about?"

It occurred to him that he wanted to look at her, more than talk to her. She was solid. There was no transparency, like there was in his miniature hologram of her. He could touch her – he reached out for her, and noticed a ring on his own left hand, where he had never worn anything before. He brought the hand up to his face, and turned it over and back again. A plain, gold band.

"Are we married?" Data asked.

"Are you working on your sense of humor? I've asked you not to do that to me," Tasha answered testily. "We've been married almost a year. Miles and Keiko helped you talk me into it. The captain performed the ceremony. Don't you remember? Or are you testing me?"

"Forgive me, no," he replied. He searched her eyes, trying to cope with his memory loss, trying to put the pieces together. "Do you love me?"

Tasha knelt on the bed and put her arms around him. "Data, you know how I feel. You're really worrying me." She hugged him and kissed his cheek. "Of course I love you."

"Do I love you?" Data asked.

"We've talked about this before. Love is more than an emotion. It's how you treat someone, how you relate to each other; it's in your thoughts and actions, regardless of your ability to feel. I know you love me, in your own way."

Data returned her embrace, feeling her breasts pressed against his chest, feeling the pulsation of her living heart. He brushed back the hair by her ear and kissed her there, then kissed the point where her jaw met her earlobe. He kissed her neck, and heard her muffled giggle. He stopped and looked at her.

"I know that look," she said with a smile. "Do you want me again?"

"Yes."

They both lay down. "We haven't gone twice in a long time. It's like when we were first together."

Data swept his hand along the planes and curves of her body. He intended to reacquaint himself with the topography of her skin, which had softened somewhat, lost a modicum of elasticity, but still glowed with the healthy evidence of her athleticism. He rested his hand on her lower belly. There was a pillowy curvature there that he didn't remember. It was very feminine, and rather endearing.

"You're not going to start in about having a baby again, are you?" Tasha asked warily.

"No," Data replied. He kissed the hillock of her lower abdomen.

"Though, I must admit, I do like to practice," she went on.

He grunted his agreement. The sensations were old, yet new at the same time. She was just as he remembered her: soft, warm, wet, familiar. His memory of her did not fade with time, and he knew that this was not a memory. There was a sense of the routine that was unfamiliar to him, the feeling of being in a couple that had been together for years, and knew each other with an old intimacy that seemed comforting. She touched him with a laziness and ease that said that this was not the first or the last time, but merely one time in the hundreds of couplings that would come and go their way.

He wanted to seize the moment, imbue it with more urgency. He knew, somehow, that he could lose her in an instant, and he wanted her to know that he would never take even a millisecond of their time together for granted, that she was too precious to let any moment with her descend to mere routine. She caught on to his state and upped the intensity. He felt her teeth on him, her nails. She gasped at the moment of penetration; he remembered her saying that it never ceased to be a joyful mystery to her that they could come together this way, as if they were made for each other. Her voice in his ear, her feet hooked around his legs, her hands on his back, all felt strange and familiar at once. He never closed his eyes during the act, and he did not now: he wanted to keep all of his senses attuned to the experience. He recognized her point of no return, intensified his movements, and heard the helpless cries of pleasure that he never dared to imitate. She clung to him suddenly with a gasp. He felt the spasms of her body, and brought his own program to an end with a sense of relief. She panted in his ear and sighed with satisfaction. He held her close, wanting to remain connected to her, unwilling to let the magic fade.

"You never disappoint," she complimented him, and kissed him on the neck. She moved as if to get up, but he restrained her.

"Not yet."

She relaxed, and he rolled them over, so that she was lying on top of him.

"Okay," she replied, "but I might fall asleep on you again."

"No, stay awake," he insisted.

She made an amused sound. "You're so funny, sometimes."

A bounce and a change in weight announced that Spot had joined them on the bed. Tasha lifted her head from Data's shoulder. "There you are, you naughty baby." Spot rubbed her head against Data's side and started to purr.

"Hello, Spot."

"Ugh. Next pet we get, I'm naming," Tasha teased.

Spot stopped purring and splayed out her legs to wash her chest. She flopped her weight against Data and worked her tongue over her shoulder.

"She's just reminding me that you love her better," Tasha said.

"That is not true," Data replied.

Spot was washing one leg, and the look she gave Data, with one eye closed, said that she resented his comment.

Tasha lay her head down on Data's shoulder, and he felt a sense of contentment and peace. Her weight on him grew heavier. She was falling asleep. "Please, stay awake," he reminded her. Oddly, he felt like closing his eyes himself. Just for a minute. The pressure on his shoulder grew heavier. And heavier.

"Spot."

She had curled up on him, almost on his face, and was purring like a fuel-injected motor. He tucked her in his arm and sat up. He was fully dressed in his uniform, alone, and his internal chronometer told him that it was 2200 hours. He looked beside him to be sure. There was no sign that anyone else had slept in his bed.

Spot was fidgeting in his grasp. He released her, and she jumped down to the floor with a little buzz.

Data stared straight ahead as he checked his memory records. It had been a dream. He thought about it for a while, almost a full second. He decided that his evaluations could wait – they were not due until the next day, after all. And if he activated his dream program again, perhaps he would see her one more time.


End file.
